


The Artist and the Assassin

by Elune



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-10
Updated: 2016-11-10
Packaged: 2018-08-30 04:53:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8519203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elune/pseuds/Elune
Summary: Sora, a painter and political activist, is wanted for inciting a revolution.  The government sends a specially trained assassin to deal with this threat.  Although the two don't see eye to eye, they may have more in common than they think.  This fic is infinitely worse than you think it is, I promise.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah I know this is total garbage, but I got inspired by recent events so I kind of had to write it. The muse was cruel though and went away about halfway through the piece. It shows. 
> 
> Sorry for any mistakes, I hope it doesn't ruin the reading experience.

Riku’s eyes focused on the target, his hands steady on his weapon. The object of his attention had his back to Riku, focused intently on the canvas in front of him. Riku didn’t have to see his face to know that this was the illusive Sora Hoshino. The boy had been hard to track down, which had given Riku plenty of time to commit every scrap of information from his dossier to memory.

Even though Riku knew much about Sora, seeing the boy in person had been a bit shocking. He had expected something, anything more deserving of the label “political dissident” than this slip of a boy, hair impossibly messy, humming as he spread paint over the canvas in front of him. But Riku was never one to be taken in by appearances. He knew the picture of innocence painted by the boy’s wide blue eyes and open face was a façade covering his true nature.

A painter, such a lowly profession in the social hierarchy… and yet this one had somehow found the power to inspire revolution. The incongruity of the character before him had Riku intrigued on some level. In another life, perhaps they would have found each other. He could picture it now, Sora’s young, artistic prodigy stoking the passion that used to burn within him. But Riku had long since extinguished that fire. He had burned his books the same day he was recruited.

His superiors considered him uniquely qualified for this kind of mission, because living the other side and rejecting it lessened the risk of defection. He smirked. As if this slip of a boy had the charisma to seduce Riku away from his beliefs now. Although the boy’s work was lovely, Riku had more important things to fight for.

These days, Riku considered himself an artist of a different kind. He had painted many works. His galleries ranged from private to public, and all kinds of canvases had been decorated with his art. Ceilings, floors, walls… even the brick of remote alleyways bore permanent marks of his work. He wondered what kind of piece he could create this time. Perhaps the boy’s brains splattered all over his canvas… a collaboration of sorts. Their work blending together, inseparable. Priceless. Yes, that would do nicely.

Riku centered his focus on the target, clicking the safety off his weapon. A breeze picked up, and he immediately adjusted for the disturbance. One shot was ever all it took for Riku. Efficient to a fault, they said.

And then the boy moved, and Riku’s bullet tore through the painting he’d been working on instead of the boy’s forehead. Riku’s breath left his body. The timing was practically impossible. Sora have to have been tipped off; the resistance must have surveillance on him now. Riku knew his mission had been compromised. So much for the perfect record.

But Sora hadn’t run yet, hadn’t disappeared, and that alone made Riku pause. Sora had moved a few feet to an adjacent window and now stood in front of two large canvasses covered with white sheets as if nothing was amiss. His position still afforded Riku a clear view of his target, which meant that Riku had another chance at completing the mission successfully, although not cleanly. Riku took up his weapon once again, fully on his guard this time.

Before Riku had a chance to aim properly, Sora whipped off the sheets with a flourish of his arm, revealing the paintings underneath. The painting on the left was mainly a beautiful city scape, probably a faithful representation of Hollow Bastion’s skyline. Near the bottom of the painting, the bright city seemed to melt and warp into something more sinister; Hollow Bastion’s mirror image hung upside down, dark and foreboding. The blue sky of the upper city had been replaced with blood red. Yellow-eyed monsters peeked out of the darkness in every shadow of the piece. Riku felt a shiver trail down his spine. The painting was expertly done, Sora’s techniques flawless, but it was so difficult to look at. Riku wondered if it disturbed him so much because he understood exactly what each detail represented.

Riku’s eyes roved to the canvas on the right. This piece was larger than life and beautiful in its simplicity. Although not as graphic as the first painting, this one was just as eye-catching. Riku took in the sketchy outline of a solider holding a rifle, fingers clutching the trigger, ready to fire. To the soldier’s left stood a child reaching out, offering a flower up to the barrel of the gun.

 _So full of self-righteous symbolism_ , Riku thought. It was a naïve and unoriginal piece, in Riku’s opinion, but undeniably well rendered. His target definitely had talent, drive, and passion. A deadly combination for his employers. The threat had to be eliminated.

Riku took aim once again. This time he would not miss.

But as Riku looked through the scope of his rifle, he found his target missing. Looking up in surprise, his fears were confirmed. Sora had disappeared in the time it had taken him to blink. _Slippery fox_. Riku gritted his teeth. Well, if he pulled this mission off the hard way, he better get a raise.

Sprinting across the rooftop of the building he’d being sniping from, Riku headed towards Sora’s studio. A wild leap off the edge of one building paid off as Riku managed to land on the roof of the building adjacent to Sora’s. He couldn’t be that far behind the rebel, and Riku expected to be able to gain on the boy thanks to his superior physique. Riku jumped down onto Sora’s fire escape, quickly climbing up to the level where he’d last seen the boy. It only took him a few seconds to get the window open, and then he was sprinting through the rooms he had seen Sora in earlier.

He could see the paintings in his peripheral as he flew by, intent on catching his target. His instincts had him stopping short at the painting of the soldier and the child, however, wasting precious seconds. He immediately realized what had drawn his intention. From his previous distance, the sketchy details of the work hadn’t been clear to him. Now, analyzing the painting from close up, he could see his own image staring back at him. The solider had his face, and the child bore Sora’s. Riku’s heartbeat thundered in his chest.

“Riku.” A voice called to him. As he tore his eyes away from the picture, he saw Sora standing across from him, blue eyes even brighter than he had imagined. His target, right there in the flesh, close enough to touch. So Sora hadn’t run after all.

They each held their ground, staring at the other as the silence stretched and congealed around them. Sora appeared to be unarmed, and Riku’s brief assessment of his surroundings hadn’t revealed any obvious traps. Either Sora was very brave and very stupid, or Riku was missing something here.

“So what does it mean?” Riku’s voice broke the silence, but he found he was surprised at his own question. Now that it was out there, he felt an almost primal need to know. How had Sora found his face, why had Sora painted that image, and what did it all mean? Whether or not Riku got answers, death would come swiftly for the boy.

Sora, for his part, seemed just as startled. His brow furrowed in confusion, making his face look impossibly younger and more vulnerable.

“What?” The boy asked innocently, like he had no idea what Riku was talking about.

“The painting. The solider and the child. Does it mean anything?”

“Oh.” Sora replied, lips turning downwards. “I can’t tell you what it means. For me, that picture might be so much more than words, but the next man won’t see it the same way. You have to decide what it means for yourself. That’s the kind of freedom everyone should have.”

Riku shook his head. “No. That’s some top level bullshit and you know it. You brainwash others into following you through your sick manipulation, but you’ll find that I’m not going to play your games. Feigning naiveté will get you nowhere. Now I want answers.”

Riku advanced on the boy, and for the first time, Sora looked afraid. Sora retreated until his back hit the wall behind him. Riku followed the smaller boy, cornering him. A hand closed around his throat. His heartbeat thundered through his ears and his pulse thrummed against the palm, calloused but warm. _Alive_.

Sora’s eyes closed, lashes dark against his cheek. Tears spilled down onto Riku’s wrist, wetting his sleeve. Riku wondered where the boy’s bravado had gone. To stand your ground before a god of death like Riku but then to lose your nerve in your final moments… it was disgraceful. Riku almost pitied him.

“Tell me.” Riku snarled. He was done playing civil; now the serious interrogation could start. He was well versed in the kind of information gathering that involved blood, broken bones, and bruised skin. It would almost be a shame to ruin someone so pretty, but Riku’s art needed a subject. He thought he’d start with the hands. Sora’s paintings were so delicate, after all.

“The picture.” Riku continued. “How did you know my face? Why did you make that? And why didn’t you run?”

When Sora’s answer wasn’t immediately forthcoming, Riku spun the boy around, twisting his arm back painfully in the process.

“I can make this very painful for you.” Riku whispered in the Sora’s ear, making him shiver. “Either way, you die without dignity tonight. But, if you cooperate and give me whatever I want to know about the resistance, let’s just say that I won’t make you piss yourself before you’re dead.” He gave the boy’s arm another vicious tug for emphasis before pushing the boy away.

Sora spun to face the assassin, face contorted in pain but somehow still determined. “I won’t tell you anything about the resistance. I’m not afraid to die; I’m not even afraid to suffer. You can’t take anything more than what’s already been taken from me.”

Riku resigned himself to getting messy. The boy wouldn’t talk, so the boy would be broken. He was relatively confident in his ability to pry information out of the youth. Once he started peeling back skin, the kid would start spilling everything he wanted to know. Riku hoped his superiors would be happy enough with any information about the resistance that they’d overlook his failure on the original mission. “Do not engage” had been strictly spelled out, but it was too late to go back now.

Riku took a step forward and Sora’s blue eyes widened. “Wait!” The boy cried out. “You can do whatever you want, but let me tell you this first. About the painting… not what it means, but what I see in it.”

Sora’s words stopped Riku in his tracks. “Fine. I’m listening. But if you feed me a line of bullshit and feelings, it’s going to be so much worse for you.”

Sora nodded and took a deep breath before beginning. “The soldier and the child… well, where do I start? The soldier… I think he’s frightened. You can see it in his face; he’s seen the darkness in the world, and he knows that life isn’t black and white. So he follows orders, goes to war, and falls into darkness in the name of protecting the ones he loves. He clings to what he’s told because he’s tried and failed make sense of it himself. The complexity overwhelms him, and so he drowns. He carries the guilt with him every day. When he looks at others, all he can see are differences, because that’s all he’s ever been taught. He’s drawn to the differences as a way to make order out of the chaos, to try to separate the good from the bad. As for the child… the child can’t understand the grey areas of life. The complexity of it all is lost on him, and so he walks through life unafraid. Unaware, eyes closed to the depth of reality. He is stubborn, trusting, naïve, and hopeful. He refuses to accept that some people can’t be saved, and he can’t comprehend the reasons anyone would ever take a life. He would only sacrifice himself for peace.” Sora smiled. “Kinda like you and I. I think that’s why they wear our faces.”

Riku scowled at the boy’s explanation. “You _think_ that’s why, but you don’t know? Didn’t you paint it?”

Sora shook his head sadly. “No. I painted the city but not the soldier and child. I could never capture that kind of emotion. Just look at their faces. It’s a gorgeous work.”

The assassin had to admit that the painting was beautiful, and the artistic work done on the characters’ faces was particularly stunning. He had never heard of another famous painter working with Sora Hoshino, however. He frowned, wondering how his superiors could have missed another high-profile, outspoken dissident like Sora. It didn’t seem possible.

Turning to the boy, the assassin queried, “So if you didn’t paint it, who did?”

Sora’s eyes were wet with unshed tears as he answered. “You painted it, Riku. You gifted me this piece on remembrance day and told me we’d be together forever. Yet here we are…”

Sora’s sentence was cut off as Riku struck him in the stomach. Taken by surprise, Sora couldn’t stifle the cry of pain that let his throat. Then Riku’s calloused hands were on his arms, restraining him. Fists indiscriminately slammed into his body. The pain was everywhere. The fragile bones in his left hand were broken at some point, but Sora hardly noticed. His mind was numb to everything but the deeper hurt of betrayal.

And then all of a sudden, the sensations stopped. Sora somehow found the strength to pull himself up. Riku was standing in front of the painting of the soldier and the child, openly weeping.

“I didn’t do this.” He said to no one in particular. “It wasn’t me. I don’t believe any of this.”

Sora shook his head. “You did. You may not believe in anything now, but you did believe in us then. You believed in freedom and kindness and goodness, and we fought so hard to show people those things. You may have forgotten, but I know you still have the ability to feel!”

Riku’s fist ripped right through the canvas. He tore at it, animalistic, desperate. “No, No, No, No, NO!” Falling to his knees, Riku bowed his head. He remembered painting the image he’d just destroyed. He remembered Sora. Things were still fuzzy and out of focus, but he knew there was truth to the boy’s words. But it terrified him to realize that he couldn’t understand that person – his beliefs, his reasoning, his values… his thoughts and feelings. They were as foreign to him as a stranger’s. It was as if two minds and hearts were inhabiting the same body. Internally, he was being torn apart.

And then, Riku felt a hand on his shoulder. Sora was still here. He could have run many times over, but still the stubborn boy stayed. Riku couldn’t understand why. The Riku that Sora had known and loved was gone; Sora must have known that. Whatever brainwashing had been done to convert him was irreversible. The memories that had been implanted in his mind and heart and the values that he’d been taught would always be with him. He couldn’t be saved. He wasn’t worth saving.

Riku looked down at the ruined art. Sora had said the child believed everyone could be saved. Of course. Sora would never leave anyone behind. Asking Sora to let go, to save himself and leave one hopeless soul, was as impossible as convincing a leopard to change its spots. Naïve, Riku thought, and precious. It was why he loved Sora.

Taking a deep breath, Riku turned to face Sora. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m not whole. I’m broken, and I don’t think I can be fixed. But I think I need you, and I _know_ I love you.”

Sora’s smile was radiant. His hands were on Riku’s face, tilting his head up, bringing their foreheads together. “I know I love you too. You and I have the strength to put you back together. Nothing is ever too broken to be fixed. Just like the world.”

Riku’s brought his hands up to hold Sora’s, being careful of Sora’s damaged left hand. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I don’t now if I can do better, but I want to try. Forgive me?”

Sora leaned in for a kiss, their lips meeting chastely before the kiss deepened.

“Always.”


End file.
